London midday: Stocks stay flat as bookies drop; Ocado surges on international tie-up
London stocks stayed flat by midday on Monday as investors mulled the US government shutdown and sifted through a raft of corporate news, with bookmakers under the cosh amid speculation the government is planning a £2 maximum stake on betting machines.
The FTSE 100 was steady at 7,733.77, while the pound was up 0.3% versus the dollar at 1.3898 and flat against the euro at 1.1344.
The US government shutdown was a big focus as a Sunday session of the Senate failed to yield any kind of agreement between the Democrats and Republicans, after lawmakers failed to agree on a spending bill by the deadline last Friday.
With a vote to the end the shutdown postponed until 1700 GMT on Monday, many federal government offices will remain shut.
While noting that the shutdown appears to have held little sway on the dollar, analyst Joshua Mahony at IG said: "Amid a day that is largely devoid of economic releases, there is likely to be a significant focus on both the US government shutdown, and the upcoming plethora of notable data releases. In a week which sees both the BoJ and ECB announce their latest monetary policy stance, there is no doubt that this week will be dominated by fundamentals."
In corporate news, bookies William Hill and Ladbrokes Coral, and GVC Holdings were all sharply lower following reports over the weekend that the UK is set to announce a new £2 maximum stake on high stakes gaming machines.
Defence contractor GKN fell. Having rejected a £7bn hostile bid from Melrose Industries last week, the engineer sought to highlight its potential as a standalone entity, lifted sales forecasts for its electric driveline business in 2020 to £275m from a previous forecasts of £200m.
Another engineer Smiths Group edged down as agreed to sell its John Crane's bearings business to private Austrian company Miba AG for an enterprise value of $35m.
Construction contractor Kier Group declined after confirming it has taken over the HS2 and Highways England smart motorway projects from collapsed Carillion and announcing other contract wins.
IMI was weaker after it said that Peter Spencer, the managing director of its IMI Hydronic Engineering, was leaving the group.
On the upside, however, Ocado surged after signing its second major international customer less than two months after the first, with a contract to build a customer fulfilment centre for Canada's second largest supermarket group.
Shire was on the front foot, boosted by news that French healthcare group Sanofi has agreed to buy US haemophilia specialist Bioverativ for $11.6bn.
UAE-based private healthcare operator NMC Health was in the black after announcing two earnings-accretive acquisitions in the UAE and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
FTSE 100 catering company Compass was higher after it said that changes to the US tax system will cut its effective tax rate from 26.5% to around 24%.
Dixons Carphone rallied after it narrowed its full-year profit guidance and reported a 4% jump in year-on-year for the 10 weeks to 6 January, as it announced the appointment of Alex Baldock as its new chief executive.
Computacenter was also in the black after saying 2017 adjusted pre-tax results are likely to beat analysts' expectations.
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,733.77 0.04%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,641.26 -0.06%
techMARK (TASX) 3,525.32 0.25%
FTSE 100 - Risers
NMC Health (NMC) 3,370.00p 2.74%
Barclays (BARC) 205.90p 2.70%
BT Group (BT.A) 270.25p 2.33%
Shire Plc (SHP) 3,536.00p 2.17%
Evraz (EVR) 398.50p 1.45%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,780.20p 1.38%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,617.00p 1.28%
BP (BP.) 514.70p 0.94%
CRH (CRH) 2,708.00p 0.93%
Pearson (PSON) 694.40p 0.93%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Relx plc (REL) 1,601.00p -2.76%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 310.00p -1.93%
Carnival (CCL) 4,891.00p -1.69%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,941.00p -1.55%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 880.00p -1.43%
Whitbread (WTB) 3,948.00p -1.42%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,562.00p -1.42%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 4,170.00p -1.21%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 650.60p -1.18%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 608.32p -1.12%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Ocado Group (OCDO) 462.30p 11.94%
Dixons Carphone (DC.) 196.20p 4.39%
Indivior (INDV) 417.30p 4.06%
Pagegroup (PAGE) 552.75p 3.90%
Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 1,210.00p 3.77%
Aveva Group (AVV) 3,004.00p 3.51%
Convatec Group (CTEC) 193.46p 3.45%
Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) 278.40p 3.34%
Vietnam Enterprise Investments (DI) (VEIL) 487.00p 2.74%
Dignity (DTY) 986.85p 2.58%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
William Hill (WMH) 297.50p -11.54%
Ladbrokes Coral Group (LCL) 166.52p -8.73%
IMI (IMI) 1,365.00p -2.99%
GVC Holdings (GVC) 913.00p -2.67%
Cobham (COB) 131.85p -2.66%
Meggitt (MGGT) 475.90p -2.48%
CYBG (CYBG) 326.20p -2.34%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 239.20p -2.33%
Drax Group (DRX) 276.60p -1.91%
Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) 339.10p -1.82%